They Looked Like Strong Hands
by Hattie123
Summary: Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Better to love the thing you loathe, want what you reject, need what you despise? Better to accept a life of torment for those brief, blissful months when love seemed possible?


-1This is the story of my life.

The events that I describe here are only those that occurred in the space of six months, and yet it is still right to describe it as I have; my life before this six months was little more than the prelude, the introduction; my life now, my life after that time… is no life at all.

Have you ever loved and hated someone at the same time? Actually hated so much you could kill, and loved so much it is what keeps you alive? Ever wanted someone, and wanted to annihilate them at the same time? Ever felt the tearing contradiction, the love-hate-lust-loathe agony of such a juxtaposition? No? I thought not. I didn't think it was possible myself, and the irony was that I continued to see things in black and white even when every emotion I felt was torn back and forth over the grey, indecipherable battle field of my soul. I fought the truth when it was staring me in the face, until it was too late and I had lost my chance. Even now it is in my nature to fight what I know, what I couldn't honestly deny if my life depended on it.

When did I first realise I was in love with Harry? It is pointless to decide when I actually fell in love with him; I have always loved him. But realising it took much longer. Looking back it seems as though I always knew, but that is an illusion. In truth, I think I first knew on that awful flight from Hogwarts, the headlong rush through the castle and grounds, barely aware of the curses flying around, the flames, the screeching hippogriff; conscious only of Harry's terrible fury, the hatred in his indiscriminate curses, the despair in his broken voice. Snape taunted viciously, and I was barely surprised to find myself rooting for Harry. I wanted to die, wanted Harry to kill me, if only to soothe his need for vengeance. I would have killed Snape myself if I had had the chance.

It is hard to begin this tale, to decide where to start; in hindsight, everything I did I did for him, but I cannot recount my whole childhood. Needless to say, when we were young and life was not so dark, my competition with Harry was merely the stuff of schoolboys; every Quidditch match, every exam, every playground confrontation was a chance for me to prove my superiority, to repay him for refusing my friendship. As we grew older, as life grew darker, my hatred grew.

I don't want you to think that this hatred was merely a veneer, a way for me to hide the truth. It would be too easy to think that, and so limited a representation of what actually was. There were a thousand occasions on which had I had the skill, or the safety, I would have murdered him in cold blood. He was everything I had been brought up to detest, both as an ideal and as a particular individual. His name was mud in my family, I held him personally responsible for every misfortune that befell us, and every damning thought I had for him was praised by my father, the man I loved and feared like a good son ought.

And yet… and yet at the same time, even as I pursued darkness and evil, and everything he stood in opposition to, I did it for him. It is not so long ago, but I have changed a thousand years since then. I was weak and impressionable, brought up to believe in a superiority I had never managed to prove. I swallowed the Dark Lord's lies about how there is neither good nor evil, only power and those too weak to take it. Looking back, with the precious hindsight I so dwell on now, I think he was well aware of how I felt, even though I wasn't. I believed he thought me special, talented, the only one to be trusted with killing Dumbledore. Now I believe he saw into my thoughts, unravelled what I could not understand, and realised that I among the Death Eaters was the only one who had a desire greater than my fear of the Hogwarts Headmaster. Consciously, I thought I was performing the task to please the Dark Lord; subconsciously, his lie led me on; there was only power, and once Harry saw I could take it he would understand. It is ironic… how the Dark Lord must have laughed at his weak, blind servant. How bitterly I felt the blow as I ran for my life, feeling the tragedy of realising I was in love with Harry, and realising that I had just alienated him forever.

The six months following that flight are recounted now. It is a small episode in the lives of the others in this tale, but not for me. My life before, as I have said, is of no significance except as a foreword to this episode. My life now is of no significance at all.

This is the story of my life.

After the disapparation beyond the gates of Hogwarts I found myself standing opposite Snape in what appeared to be the dark living room of a dingy house. Battered curtains hung at grimy windows, and a thick layer of dust coated everything. Snape's face was utterly unreadable; only his heavy breathing and the manic twinkle in his eyes indicated that he any different from usual. I was suddenly aware that I was shaking violently, and I gripped the edge of the sofa to prevent myself falling.

'What… what have you done…?' My voice came out as a croak; I had not spoken since talking to Dumbledore.

'Only what you should have done, mister Malfoy. Be grateful I was there to forestall the consequences of your weakness.'

'But… dead?'

'It is what was meant to happen, was it not? What the Dark Lord expected of you?'

'You'll be in trouble… it was meant only for me…'

My mind was spinning, too many thoughts were bombarding me and I couldn't process them all.

'You are young and so foolish - in time, perhaps, you might understand the ways of Great wizards. Know that you were not important - that like so many followers of your path you are merely a means to an end…'

I was so scared, so tired, so confused and so heartbroken that it was only later I realized the curious way in which he phrased that comment, the way he distanced himself from me and my failure to act. I could only reel in the horror of realisation.

'But what… what have I done?'

'You have done precisely nothing, Mister Malfoy, and that is precisely why you are now in so much danger. You have failed to prove your worthiness to the Dark Lord, and yet in the eyes of his enemies you have openly confirmed your allegiance to him. Where do you turn? Dumbledore offered you a chance of redemption; I am disinclined to believe that those who remain will be so generous. But will the Dark Lord accept you back, when you had Dumbledore at your feet and still would not kill him? I think not. Whatever way you turn, you will find no friendship.'

I was shaking my head, but no movement could block out the truth of his words. The ark Lord would not have me, and Harry would not have me. I had nowhere to turn.

'What… what do I do? And my mother? What will become of her?'

You will do precisely what I tell you. Your mother will be far safer without you near her, and so you must stay away. You will stay here for now; and the less of a burden to me you manage to be, the better off you will be.'

He disapparated, and that was the last I saw of him in that house. I was waited on by a house elf; meals that I did not eat and barely noticed, endless lonely hours. I do not know how long I was there - perhaps a month, maybe five… I heard voices once or twice, but only when I was half asleep, and never clearly enough to be sure they were not extensions of my dreams. My nightmares - endless repetitions of that awful night, then waking to replay it in my head, to imagine different scenarios. It was hopeless - always my dreams and my fantasies ended with losing him. I could not escape the reality that was destroying me.

I longed for him, on so many conflicting levels, but I no longer wanted to kill him. On some days I wanted him to end my life - it seemed right, it was he who had started it. Others I longed only for his forgiveness, for a happy end that I knew did not exist.

One day, goodness knows how long I had existed in that empty half state with no company and no respite from my mind, it all ended and all began. I was wandering the house, possibly a little delirious - I had not eaten anything worth noting since Hogwarts, and I was going a little mad in my own company. I came across a mirror, dusty, old, and saw my reflection. I did not recognise it, and stared at it for a long time. The face that looked back could not be mine; it looked too serene. Thin - terribly thin; dark shadows in pronounced hollows in the cheeks, ghostly pallor, lank hair. Inky circles around those curious eyes - larger than they ought be, the grey bloodshot, but calm - too calm to reflect the madness in my mind. I returned to the mirror often after that, and sat and stared - I wanted to fall in, to become this strange, serene boy who had no cares across his face, no emotion in those blank silver eyes. Watching him settled me a little, and the trauma in my head faded a little while I was there.

And then one day, Harry appeared there also. At first I was not surprised - in the world of the boy in the mirror the bad had not happened, and life was not over. Harry stared at me from over my reflections shoulder, and in contrast to that boy his face was in turmoil. I could not read it - I had distanced myself from emotions for too long, but I could see reflected in his face the mayhem of my own mentality. And then I did not like it, this interruption to my new calm, this agonizing reminder of my existence.

'Go…away..' My voice was barely a strained croak, I had not used it in so long. He did not reply from the mirror. His eyes glittered behind his glasses and his jaw clenched.

'Go…

'No.'

It was the only word he said, and even that is a faint recall. In that strange half life I had lost the edges of myself, and I could not tell what was real and what was not, what had actually happened and what was only in my mind. The boy in the mirror was more real to me than the house in which I lived, and the memory of that night a stronger reality than the empty present. In the mirror Harry reached out and placed his hand on my reflections shoulder; I felt a detached curiosity as the weight of a hand landed on mine as well, and then the room, the mirror and the boys within disappeared in a confusing eddy as reality dissolved entirely into blackness.

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